Several suggestions, mostly regarding minigames

Hello all. I recently discovered this forum and I’d like to share several suggestions. Except for the last one, they all have to do with minigames.

First of all, two new Heavenly Chips purchases:- 4th Temple slot - Increased mana production

A Chancemaker minigame: two luck talismans (horseshoe and rabbit’s paw maybe) you can use to select areas you want more luck in. Works similar to Temple. Options include:- Higher chance of bifurcated sugar lumps- Better odds with meaty sugar lumps- Increased amount of golden cookies- Lower chance of backfiring spells- Higher chance of random drops- Higher chance of double golden cookies (either after purchasing Distilled essence of redoubled luck or as a separate effect)- When spending a sugar lump, you have a small chance of retaining it (1% per lump maybe)

Each building could have a special deity, based on that building’s minigame. I’m aware all deities have an upside and a downside, but I’m only listing upsides here. I’ve got a few suggestions for downsides below.- Temple special deity: Worship Swaps recover at x8/x4/x2 speed. No special downside is needed: swapping this deity in our out increases the timer, which should be downside enough- Wizard Tower special deity: decrease mana cost by 5/3/1 percent point. For instance, in the case of Spontaneous Edifice with this deity in the diamond slot, this would mean the spell would cost 20 + 70% mana (5 percent point down from 20 + 75%).- Farm special deity: well I don’t play the beta so I don’t know details, but I imagine you could do something with growth rates- Chancemaker special deity: all Chancemaker minigame effects have a bonus of +100%/+50%/+25%

I’d like to see more variation in deity up- and downsides. Especially downsides, because most downsides do something with golden cookies or production. Suggestions:- Sugar production slower/faster- Zero worship swap recovery- Mana slower/faster- Higher/lower chance of backfiring spells- Spells cheaper/more expensive

And the last one is one I’d REALLY love to see: please make upgrade costs partially scale with prestige. Buying upgrades is very dull after a certain point: after reincarnating, you just click on every upgrade for about ten minutes and then you’ve got them all. By increasing their cost depending on prestige (maybe by the square root of the prestige level?), it will take longer to purchase them, creating ‘yay’-moments once you can finally buy that upgrade you’ve been saving for.

I started over again, from scratch in the beta in a different browser just under 2 weeks ago, and I think that making upgrade costs scale with Prestige is a horrible idea. In the late game, and for those who have huge prestige counts and therefore huge prestige multipliers that they can completely unlock each ascension within a little while of starting, it would make a difference, but for people starting new, or who largely idle and don't have huge prestige amounts, it would be devastating.

Even if you used <1% increase X the cube root>, the newbie who has all of 8 prestige points is going to see the price of upgrades jump by 2%. Someone who has 1000 PP will see the upgrades jump by 10%. But they can't even have bought the season switcher yet, so there are 40 multiplier upgrades that they don't even have access to yet, so they can't get to 'full' CPS. Their progress is still slow, and this suggestion would slow them down further.

Comparing my beta game to my main game for base data:

Beta game I have 19 Prestige points from previous ascensions. I've made 52 more so far this ascension. My un-buffed, un-nerfed CPS is 189.6 Billion. The next prestige point will take 8.5 quadrillion to earn, or about 11.8 hours of idle production

Main game:I have 21.045 billion Prestige points. My un-buffed, un-nerfed CPS is 878 nonillion. the next Prestige point will take about 1.5 decillion, or about 2 seconds

In the beta, the lowest-priced, unpurchased upgrade in my store is Antimatter Grandmas, at 8.5 quadrillion. It will take me about 42,500 seconds of normal production to make enough to buy AGs. That's 708 minutes, or 11.8 hours.

Assume that this change is generous, and counts only the actual prestige points you have, not the ones you've earned but not claimed yet. So that's 19, for me. The cube root of 19 is something just over 2. I don't feel like figuring it out exactly. (1% x 2) is a 2% increase in the cost, so now the AG upgrade will cost 170 trillion more for another 894 seconds, or 14 minutes.

In my main game, I have 21 Billion Prestige points already. The cube root of that is 2, 758, for a 2,758% jump in upgrade costs. But because I have all the heavenly upgrades including Starter Kit and Starter Kitchen, and all but 11 of the achievements, I start out making millions of CPS even before I spend the first 11 on opening up the Prestige multiplier (PP x .1). Even as big as the price jump is (The Antimatter Grandmas would be 23.4 quintillion), though, it won't really affect how long it takes me to get the upgrades. Or it might slow me down by a few seconds, at the very beginning of the game. By the time I've got Santa fully developed, and Breath of Milk in the Dragon Aura, I'll hardly notice the price jump.

To avoid this, I'd add a suggestion that the formula either be tied to the ratio of basic CPS to seconds to get a Prestige point (In my beta game, it takes about 11 hours to earn a Prestige point. In my main one, it takes less than 5 seconds.) or that a substantial floor be included, so that the price-boost only kicks in at some substantial number of Prestige -- high enough that the relatively new player can have at least gotten their fist Permanent Upgrade slot and the Season Switcher. 5000 Prestige points, at least.

TL:DR: This is, as proposed, regressive. It will serious affect new and low-level players and barely cause a blip to those with high Prestige. And the ones with high Prestige are the ones who sail through buying upgrades without pausing.

I had a magnificently detailed breakdown of the last suggestion, and the data vampires ate it.

Basically, as proposed, it's seriously regressive. That is, it will affect beginning players and those at relatively low levels of Prestige badly, and be barely a blip to the ones who have enough Prestige to fly through buying all the upgrades in a short time.

It could work if:1) there was a floor -- a point below which it isn't in effect. or2) it was tied to something like the number of seconds it takes to earn one prestige point at normal CPS.

On the last: that's the point of ascension. It's supposed to be very quick to get back to your former CpS. The "yay" moments are buying more buildings past where you were before.

Myeah, I know. Doesn't work like that for me though. At some point I'm vaguely aware that my CpS is now higher than before and other than that it feels repetitive. The main reason I'm actively playing at this point is that I want my 7777 golden cookies; after that, I'll probably stop bothering until I have enough sugar lumps to get everything to level 10. I'd love to have something to aim for. Buying upgrades would be such a thing.

I also bet that many players would hiss and spit if this idea gets implemented, because *shock* it makes it slightly less easy for them to bake gazillions of cookies. Maybe when reincarnating, next to Normal mode and Challenge mode, a sort of 'Upgrade mode' could be added: upgrades are considerably more expensive, but you get a flat CpS boost (~5-10% maybe?) while playing this mode.

[...], it will affect beginning players and those at relatively low levels of Prestige badly, and be barely a blip to the ones who have enough Prestige to fly through buying all the upgrades in a short time.

I'm afraid you're right. So it would need a different formula than I suggested. Something that doesn't have much effect at low prestige levels, but considerable effect at high prestige levels...

A suggestion. We start with the Prestige Level (PL)Then we calculate a Prestige Percentage (PP): PP = PL/(PL + n), where n is some huge number. PP varies between 0 and 1.This gives us a Prestige Factor (PF): PF = PP * PL. The PF is the number by which upgrade costs are increased. This varies between 0% and 100% of the PL.Now we can modify the upgrade cost. The Basic Upgrade Cost (BUC) becomes the Modified Upgrade Cost (MUC): MUC = BUC * PF.

I'm afraid you're right. So it would need a different formula than I suggested. Something that doesn't have much effect at low prestige levels, but considerable effect at high prestige levels...

A much simpler way to do it: tie the upgrade cost boost to the ratio of [CPS]:[cost of next prestige point].

Low and mid-level players are measuring the time it will take them to earn the next Prestige point in hours or minutes (Days, for a brand-new game.) About the upper-end of the mid-game, it drops below a minute, and by the time you're in the late game, it's seconds (I'm at about 8 seconds to a Prestige point at my normal CPS. Frenzied, it's less than two seconds.)

To your point about not feeling like you're making any progress, it sounds like you're focusing on the upgrades at the expense of Achievements and Heavenly Upgrades. If you still don't have 7777 Golden Cookies, I'll bet my mortgage money you don't have all the achievements for 250, 300, and 350 of each building, many of the "Make X from alone", or "Make Y from Clicking alone" or for "Ascending with X cookies", or a whole bunch more.

By the way, you do realize that idling til you've got enough sugar lumps to level all your buildings up to 10 at once will take 2 years and 3 months, don't you?

If you still don't have 7777 Golden Cookies, I'll bet my mortgage money you don't have all the achievements for 250, 300, and 350 of each building, many of the "Make X from alone", or "Make Y from Clicking alone" or for "Ascending with X cookies", or a whole bunch more.

While I agree with a lot of your thoughts, I just want to point out that I personally had all those achievements you'd mentioned while only at 2,500 GCs clicked all time. By the time I had that many GCs I was already at endgame, just SE farming the 400th Chancemaker. The only achievements I was missing were total sugar lumps, level 10 buildings, and 100 ascensions.

Golden Cookies did nothing for my actual game progress and the Black Cat's Paw would take so long to waste my time getting that I just used a GC autoclicker to grind it out.

As for making upgrades more expensive, I could accept the cost scaling with Prestige level, but not by a large margin. Maybe, 1% more expensive per ascension? It would be even better if the upgrades became slightly more powerful each ascension as well. Food for thought at least.

Also, being able to buy every upgrade within minutes of a new ascension is that "yay" moment for me, as it shows the progress I made from my very first ascension at 1300 Prestige compared to my current 25.3 billion.

Also, being able to buy every upgrade within minutes of a new ascension is that "yay" moment for me, as it shows the progress I made from my very first ascension at 1300 Prestige compared to my current 25.3 billion.

Well, it does help when you can just slap some of the most expensive ones in the permanent upgrade slots. (For me, it's the two most expensive Kittens; I use my other three slots on utility upgrades.)

I'm afraid you're right. So it would need a different formula than I suggested. Something that doesn't have much effect at low prestige levels, but considerable effect at high prestige levels...

A much simpler way to do it: tie the upgrade cost boost to the ratio of [CPS]:[cost of next prestige point].

Low and mid-level players are measuring the time it will take them to earn the next Prestige point in hours or minutes (Days, for a brand-new game.) About the upper-end of the mid-game, it drops below a minute, and by the time you're in the late game, it's seconds (I'm at about 8 seconds to a Prestige point at my normal CPS. Frenzied, it's less than two seconds.)

To your point about not feeling like you're making any progress, it sounds like you're focusing on the upgrades at the expense of Achievements and Heavenly Upgrades. If you still don't have 7777 Golden Cookies, I'll bet my mortgage money you don't have all the achievements for 250, 300, and 350 of each building, many of the "Make X from alone", or "Make Y from Clicking alone" or for "Ascending with X cookies", or a whole bunch more.

By the way, you do realize that idling til you've got enough sugar lumps to level all your buildings up to 10 at once will take 2 years and 3 months, don't you?

Regarding [CPS]:[cost of next prestige point]: this would mean you could artificially lower your CpS to reduce upgrade costs, for instance by waiting for a Clot, choosing different deities/dragon auras and even selling buildings. It also means that upgrade costs increase dramatically during one ascension, including as you're buying upgrades. It sounds to me that this will lead to a very weird sort of metagame.

Regarding Achievements and Heavenly Upgrades: I've purchased all Heavenly Upgrades currently available, including Lucky Digit/Finger/Payout. The only achievements I still need are most of the level 10 ones, 365 sugar cubes, 100 ascensions and the aforementioned 7777 golden cookies. I'm currently using Krumblor's Arcane Aura and Business Day to get there as quickly as possible; I don't really care about cookie production right now other than to get as many grandmas as possible (because sugar production).

Regarding sugar cubes required: I hadn't done the math, so no :). But with some Heavenly Upgrades and Rigidel, it's going faster at least.

Also, being able to buy every upgrade within minutes of a new ascension is that "yay" moment for me, as it shows the progress I made from my very first ascension at 1300 Prestige compared to my current 25.3 billion.

For me, that's mostly a "noooh" moment, because it means I'm spending the better part of fifteen minutes buying buildings and clicking upgrade after upgrade after upgrade without so much as looking at what they all do. It's one of the reason I'm not at 100 ascensions yet: it's just tedious clicking imho. If I could buy them all in bulk, that would at least help.

I'm not positive, but I don't believe the Century Egg works the way you might think. The bonus from the Century Egg starts at 0 with a new ascension and only reaches its full potential on the 100th day of the new run. To my knowledge keeping it in the permanent upgrade slot will not transfer progress from the previous run.

I slot Omelette to help find all the eggs a lot more quickly, the three Golden Cookie upgrades, and my highest Kitten upgrade.

It doesn't transfer from the old run, but that's not the benefit of having it in a permanent upgrade slot. The benefit is that it's a compounding multiplier: It scales the same way that the cost of buildings does: the first one costs Y. The second one costs (Y+15%). The third one costs (Y+15%)+15%. Same with Century Egg. The first addition is CPS+%. The second increment is (CPS+%)+Slightly larger % and so on. If you skip the first few days, you're losing that compounded increase, because it isn't retroactive.

The longer you have a Century Egg, the more CpS it gives. By putting it in a permanent upgrade slot, its timer starts counting from the first second of the legacy. That way, it'll always give more CpS than if I find it lateron (until the 100th day, which I've never reached so far).

Aaanyway. We've been talking about more expensive upgrades now, but I made several other suggestions. I'm curious to hear what people think about those.

People who can read the code say that Century eggs count its age as the length of time the ascension has been running, not the length of time since you've bought it. But it doesn't go back and give you all the seconds of boost that you missed by not having it.

For the record, my other three permanent upgrade slots are used on Octillion fingers (for good early CpS with Starter kit and Starter kitchen), Omelette (because eggs are already annoying enough to get), and Wrinklerspawn (so I don't have to wait for it to get maximum value out of my wrinklers if I end up popping them for eggs).